• Australian Open, Day One, Men's Draw

Rafael Nadal makes it through to second round

ESPN staff
January 18, 2010
Second seed Rafael Nadal is looking to defend his Australian Open title © Getty Images
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Defending champion Rafael Nadal made it through a tricky first-round tie unscathed with a straight-sets victory over Australian No.2 Peter Luczak.

In front of his home crowd, Luczak made life hard for Nadal, breaking him in the first set before taking him to a first-set tie-breaker. However, the second seed was able to weather the storm and settled into his rhythym and moved clear, dropping just one game in the second before taking the match 7-6 6-1 6-4. Nadal will now face either Lukas Lacko or Leonardo Mayer in the next round, and he was relieved to make it through the first round.

"Playing the first round of one Grand Slam, you know, you know always the first round is a little bit more nervous and you have to start.," he said. "First rounds are always difficult to play very well."

Meanwhile seventh seed Andy Roddick made it through safely to the second round with victory over Thiemo De Bakker of the Netherlands in straight sets. Despite being out-served, Roddick came through to win 6-1 6-4 6-4. However, he suffered an early scare when he fell after colliding with a line judge, but it did not seem to cause him any real damage.

"I ran into one of those immovable objects called a referee," said Roddick."He wasn't giving up any ground. I didn't see him. He wasn't really trying to do much to get out of the way. Normally they see a player running full speed, they decide to at least move or catch the player. You know, I felt like he was trying out for WWE [World Wrestling Entertainment] or something, just letting me go."

Fourth seed Juan Martin del Potro took four sets to dispatch American Michael Russell 6-4 6-4 3-6 6-2, while in the match of the tournament so far, Ivo Karlovic beat 13th seed Radek Stepanek in five sets, 2-6 7-6(5) 6-4 3-6 6-4. And to the delight of the home fans, 17-year-old Australian Bernard Tomic dispatched France's Guillaume Rufin in straight sets 6-3 6-4 6-4, to set up a potential second-round tie with 14th seed Marin Cilic.

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